Richard “Rick” Busbea has lived a very active lifestyle. He is twice retired from the United States Air Force, where he worked in information management. Since his retirement, Rick has worked part-time at ACE Hardware. He enjoys golf, gardening, and riding motorcycles. Rick has many projects he is working on around the home, including his newest project, restoring a 1929 Model A that his father passed on to him. In addition, he sings and plays guitar professionally in Sedona and the surrounding area.

One day, Rick went in for a routine visit with his cardiologist for a baseline assessment of his heart condition and underwent a stress test and ultrasound. The cardiologist determined that he needed to go to the Cath Lab for a procedure on his heart. Rick underwent percutaneous intervention of the heart and received a medication for conscious sedation called Versed. Unfortunately, he had an adverse reaction to this medication, and the physician decided to keep Rick in the hospital overnight.

Because he experienced confusion and visual changes, Rick underwent an MRI of his head. The MRI revealed that he had suffered multiple small infarcts, determined to be strokes. “When I woke up, I was blind and could not see anything; this lasted for about one, one-and-a-half days,” Rick said, recalling the challenges he suddenly faced. “I didn’t know who I was or where I was. I had poor word-finding ability and hallucinations. Eventually, my eyesight was returning, but with left-field cut deficits. [For example,] when someone was trying to hand me a cup of water, I could see the cup of water but could not see the person handing me the water. It is a really odd feeling to see objects floating towards you, and you know that someone is handing it to you but cannot see them.”

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